Pianist Quotes

“Liberace was certainly master and commander of the ivories ~ he is the only pianist I can watch or listen to without suffering a case of 'Stagefright Sympathy Sickness'.”

“Once she called to invite me to a concert of Liszt piano concertos. The soloist was a famous South American pianist. I cleared my schedule and went with her to the concert hall at Ueno Park. The performance was brilliant. The soloist's technique was outstanding, the music both delicate and deep, and the pianist's heated emotions were there for all to feel. Still, even with my eyes closed, the music didn't sweep me away. A thin curtain stood between myself and pianist, and no matter how much I might try, I couldn't get to the other side. When I told Shimamoto this after the concert, she agreed."But what was wrong with the performance?" she asked. "I thought it was wonderful.""Don't you remember?" I said. "The record we used to listen to, at the end of the second movement there was this tiny scratch you could hear. Putchi! Putchi! Somehow, without that scratch, I can't get into the music!"Shimamoto laughed. "I wouldn't exactly call that art appreciation.""This has nothing to do with art. Let a bald vulture eat that up, for all I care. I don't care what anybody says; I like that scratch!""Maybe you're right," she admitted. "But what's this about a bald vulture? Regular vultures I know about--they eat corpses. But bald vultures?"In the train on the way home, I explained the difference in great detail.The difference in where they are born, their call, their mating periods. "The bald vulture lives by devouring art. The regular vulture lives by devouring the corpses of unknown people. They're completely different.""You're a strange one!" She laughed. And there in the train seat, ever so slightly, she moved her shoulder to touch mine. The one and only time in the past two months our bodies touched.”

“In the rather informal survey I have taken over the years on intensity of interest in food by profession, lawyers rank only a few trades below concert pianists....”

“Investing in a startup does not make you an entrepreneur any more than buying a grand piano makes you a concert pianist.”

“A pianist is a painter of music”

“If I had my life to live over I wish I could be a great pianist or something.”

“Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.”

“I'm a concert pianist. That's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment.”

“Jan had always been a good pianist, and now he was the finest in the world.”